Imposter syndrome, part of every founder’s breakfast (May 2022)

I guarantee you every founder, from pre-seed to Series XYZ, has to swallow their imposter’s syndrome with breakfast every morning. It’s been one month into my entrepreneurial journey and I owe an update given my promise to learn out loud.

In spirit of pulling the facade right off, this is an emotional rollercoaster. Instead of good and bad weeks in corporate, it feels like momentum can shift from one customer discovery call to the next. As Dory would say, just keep swimming (did I just quote Finding Nemo for the first time?).

It’s been helpful to remind myself that “startups don’t starve, they drown”. Stay organized (a simple kanban on Notion will do) and sprint towards testing the next iteration of your idea. Everyone has ideas and feedback. I’m learning quickly that it’s a constant balancing act between the sponge who absorbs all the information around and the stubborn optimist who trusts his/her own instincts.

So what mental models or frameworks have helped so far? To build for tomorrow, I think about: What is of great worth to people and what might that look like in the future? Some answers that emerge may sound wacky or non-obvious, but sometimes that’s a good sign.

When it’s time to start testing ideas, I took inspiration from the diverge-and-converge technique I used in design thinking workshops over the last few years. I often check in with myself to ask “what mental mode I need to be in”. There is a time to be divergent, to allow information to flow in without friction and capture half-baked ideas or inspirations as they come to mind. Other times call for being convergent, to apply rigor and analyze all the learnings thus far to map out what the next steps are.

I don’t know if this was helpful but, in case it was for a few, here goes my ongoing pledge to learn out loud. Is this hard? Yes. Are the odds stacked against you as a first-time founder? You bet. But for a small chance to create something special, I’ll take my odds.